


a mighty spirit

by sinequanon



Series: mortal night [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 16:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: Phil Coulson and Stiles Stilinski had never officially met before that day in the conference room with the Fairy Queen of New York.(Both of them were too busy keeping their heads down for that.)Unfortunately, the time for anonymity is coming to an end.





	a mighty spirit

**Author's Note:**

> This was not supposed to happen. But MsTupelo left me a very nice comment on the last story and mentioned a sort of all-knowing Coulson, and one day when I was waiting for an appointment I started writing what I thought was going to be an Alt-Phil, what-if story that veered off from my regular universe.
> 
> Because I was writing this at the same time I was writing the next story in this ‘verse, though, well...this isn’t Alt-Phil anymore. This part is mostly conversation between Stiles and Phil, but it feeds directly into the next part, which will be posted in two weeks.
> 
> (I have twisted some canon MCU events here for my own ends. I think it’s mostly self-explanatory, though I should probably note that I switched things around a bit so that that the Avengers came together before Loki.)

To the outside world, Phil Coulson was not a complicated man. He might have been second only to Fury at SHIELD, but he had learned early in life that blandness was both a suitable armor and an excellent camouflage, and those traits had served him well over the years.

Most people would pass him on the street and not look twice, and that suited Phil just fine. For many reasons.

Within SHIELD, though, tales of Coulson’s rise through the agency's ranks had taken on almost a mythical quality over the decades that he and Fury had worked together, prompted no doubt by the Director’s own tendency to make even the most innocuous piece of information about Phil sound mysterious (and likely also born of a perverse desire to make his friend’s life more difficult).

_Italy? Well, I sent Agent Coulson to Greece, but if he stopped in Italy, he must have had a reason. Why do you ask?_

_I suppose it's possible you saw Coulson waltzing with the duchess; just because I’ve never seen him dance doesn’t mean it’s not possible._

_Don't you worry about Agent Coulson’s whereabouts right now; you’ve got your own problems. I’ll tell you what. Once_ you _can fight off a man using nothing more than a pair of mittens and a ballpoint pen, you’ll get to sleep in, too._

_How am I supposed to know if the man has a man-eating python? I'm not his keeper. Here’s an idea. Why don't you go to his house and poke around? Consider it stealth training. If you lose a limb while you’re there, then you’ll have your answer._

There were agents who were convinced that Phil controlled everything from the WSC to the weather, and even Maria Hill had asked him to confirm or deny a rumor or two over their time together, even though she knew that Phil would never actually do so.

(And for the record, no, he was neither a puppet master, nor could he control the weather.)

It was those same agents who thought that Phil exemplified everything that made SHIELD successful who would be most surprised to learn that that the very skills that Phil had honed as a SHIELD operative had been learned much earlier, in the shadow of one of New York’s greatest vampire clans.

(Phil thanked his lucky stars every day that his great grandfather had been fortunate enough to cross paths with Jeremiah all those years ago. People could say what they wanted to about the city's supernatural--Phil had nothing but respect for everyone who had to live their life in the shadows.)

It still didn't mean that he wanted to be trapped in an enclosed space with the city's undead population for hours. That way lie madness, and he got more than enough of that at SHIELD.

<> <>

“I hear that you got your own invitation to the Winter Solstice gathering.”

Coulson probably should have been surprised to see Agent Stilinski hovering in his doorway, but the more time he spent with the young man, the more he was convinced that supernatural-ness (as Stark liked to call it) was rubbing off on Stiles.

There was no way that the young man in question could have known about the black envelope on Coulson's desk; yet here he was, waiting to be invited in.

At Phil's nod, he stepped into the room, shut the door behind him and took the seat opposite him with a tired sigh borne of way too many people vying for his attention, and not enough hours in the day.

(Phil sympathized; frankly, it had been that kind of _month_. Their parade of supernatural “guests” had died down in the last week, thanks to an unexpected gift that followed Stiles around like a particularly dedicated bodyguard, but that didn't mean that things were back to normal. Still, the fact that said gift was tiny and could still manage to eat a man had managed to clear out Stiles's office with an efficacy that Phil envied; Phil himself was still having nightmares about the sheer amount of paperwork that the last month of visitors had generated.)

“I hear that you’ve finally settled on a new partner,” Phil countered wryly, gesturing toward the wings fluttering just inside his field of vision. As if they had heard him, the wings in question solidified briefly into the outlines of not one, but two tiny dragons.

Stiles didn't even glance in his honor guards’ direction, but his gaze drifted toward the drawer where the invitation was hidden and then pinned Phil with a kind, but knowing look. “You're going to have to tell them soon, you know. Maybe not everything, but...something.” He paused, and one of the dragons flitted over to awkwardly burrow into Stiles's shirt, while Phil felt the other crawl onto his own shoulder. For a moment, Phil held his breath--having a dragon crawl down his shirt would be completely unprofessional, but he still kind of wanted it anyway--before the dragon settled in the juncture between his neck and shoulder with a contented rumble-purr that made both men smile.

“I'm actually surprised that none of them have figured it out yet. The information is out there for those who know how to look, and Tony and JARVIS definitely have those skills. And the gremlins like Stark enough that they aren't trying very hard to hide things from him--at this point, I think they're just playing the shell game to amuse themselves. The other Avengers are being followed around, too. Clint's noticed, but he just thinks he's being followed because he's dating me. To be fair, I'm sure that some of them are following him because of his connection to me. But most of them aren't. And I know _you’ve_ noticed, even if the Avengers have mostly learned to ignore it.”

Coulson _had_ noticed--it was his job to look out for the Avengers, after all--but Phil had assumed that the community's increased interest was a result of Stiles's presence at SHIELD. But what Stiles was implying was something much larger.

(Phil really didn't want to think about what that might mean.)

Instead, he settled back in his chair and tried to ignore the coming headache. “If you don't mind me asking, how long have you known?”

“You essentially got stabbed with a giant spear wielded by a guy who was trying to take over the world; that kind of story gets around, even with witches going around altering people’s memories to hide the fact that you pulled a Lazarus on everyone. Not to mention that Jeremiah wouldn't have put that much effort into saving you if you weren't important to him. I wasn't at SHIELD then, but word gets around. Everyone in the community knows who you are. Plus, it seems like the more I try not to listen to the gossip, the more people want to tell me. I know so many secrets I could probably start my own spy agency at this point.” The young man grinned, and nodded to where Phil's dragon was sleepily creeping inside the collar of his shirt. “Plus, Izzy likes you, so…”

There was a dilemma here that Coulson wasn't sure how to resolve. On one hand, Phil had spent years keeping his personal and professional lives separate. Both his family and the clan had understood (and encouraged it, even), and as a result, Phil had been mostly a nonentity to the supernatural community at large. He’d formed bonds with Clint and Natasha, with Tony and Pepper, and then with the other Avengers, and it had been enough. On the other hand, his near-death experience had given him both tangible ties to his family’s clan, and notoriety among the rest of them. Agent Stilinski's appearance had only sped up the inevitable collision of the two halves of his life.

Hence, the invitation on his desk.

(If he could, he would burn the invitation and pretend he’d never seen it.)

Because despite the growing connections in his personal life over the past few months, the opposite had happened in his professional life. He’d been almost relieved when Stiles entered the picture and took everyone's (Clint’s) focus off of him. After all, how could he tell them that Loki had killed him after all, and that Jeremiah had brought him back?

(For a man who had been ascribed almost supernatural abilities by his colleagues, Phil thought his situation was bitterly ironic.)

“You know why I can't tell them.”

“What, that one of the city's most powerful vampires loved you enough to save your life? And then hid it by putting the whammy on everyone on the helicarrier?” Stiles asked, ignoring Phil's minute flinch. “Sure, it’ll be awkward; the supernatural conversation always is. But it might bring the Avengers some comfort to know that you’ve got another layer of protection at your back when they can't be there.” Stiles sighed heavily, and the lump that had stopped near the man’s ribs migrated up until a head peeked up at Phil out of the top of Stiles's shirt. “Look, if it was just your family, I think we could still keep it a secret. But you know how most of the clans are, especially at a party. If you haven't told Clint by the Solstice, someone else is going to do it for you. Probably in the most invasive and embarrassing way possible.”

“You didn't see them after Loki. Clint had enough trouble recovering from the scepter’s influence,” Phil argued. “If he found out that someone else has tampered with his memory, even for me—”

“It has to come from you,” Stiles interrupted. “They love you, and they trust you, and I don't think it's going to matter nearly as much as you think it does.”

Phil Coulson had never been a coward. But...

“The World Security Council keeps poking at some of the older creatures in the city—your clan head included,” the younger man pointed out. “You know as well as I do that one of these days, someone is going to get fed up with them and poke back, and I can guarantee that the WSC isn’t going to like it when that happens.”

“I never wanted to be in the middle of this--I still don't--and I know you don't either. But I'm not sure we have that luxury anymore.”

<> <>

Phil tried to tell the Avengers his secret, he did; but life (and doombots) kept getting in the way. First, Tony went to South America for a week of business meetings. Then, Natasha was sent on a three day mission that was extended to six because of a freak snowstorm. In the meantime, the army tried to kidnap Bruce, Doom tried to kidnap everyone, and Thor had to return to Asgard for some kind of national holiday--the details of which Phil was doing his best to forever wipe from his brain.

Before he knew it, it was the week before the Solstice, and Phil was no closer to telling his team about his brush with death than he had been during his conversation with Stiles.

Still, he chose a night when everyone was free, sat them down for a nice dinner…

The explosions started during dessert.

**Author's Note:**

> There you have it. The next part will be posted in two weeks, and then I’m going to have to sit down and figure out where this thing is going to go now, because it has deviated wildly from my original plan. So, for those of you who remember back when I said that this would be five parts, that is definitely not going to happen.
> 
> (I apologize _again_ for lack of responses to comments. They are coming!)
> 
> Next week: a body-swapping Stiles/Originals crossover.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
